Sometimes money can buy you happiness. For instance, I’m sure the Cubs would be happy to be rid of Alfonso Soriano and the remainder of the eight-year, $136 million contract he signed after the 2006 season. According to a recent report from Bruce Levine at ESPN Chicago, they might be aiming for just that. Levine’s source says that the Cubs “would be willing to absorb a high percentage” of the roughly $60 million remaining on his contract, which runs through 2014. That will certainly make him more palatable to other teams, but I still wonder if he’s worth a trade even at a steep discount.

Soriano has massively underproduced relative to his contract in the last three years. Injuries have limited him to 1,369 PA, and he has just 0.2 batting runs above average in that span. That ranks 107th out of 135 qualified hitters, just a tick behind Melky Cabrera. In total that performance, translated into WAR Dollars, was worth $14.7 million, or less than what Soriano will make in each of the next three seasons. There’s a good chance that his three-year total won’t even reach $18 million, making a trade for him a dicey proposition even without the contract.

One idea behind the trade is that Soriano might produce better numbers if he’s taken out of the field completely. That is, an American League team might find use for him a a DH, and maybe a part-time left fielder. While that might sound like an interesting notion, it’s not easy to prove. After all, about a half-win of his value from 2009 through the present has come from defense — UZR has rated him above average in the last two years. So that puts him further down the defensive spectrum, while taking away those supposed contributions. (If you can’t tell, I’m skeptical about UZR’s output on him.)

Essentially, for the DH theory to check out, we’d have to make the enormous assumption that playing the field has played a large part in Soriano’s injuries, and that the injuries are the primary cause of his offensive downswing. It’s plausible, I suppose, and it’s probably true to some degree. But is it true to the degree that would turn him back into a +20-run hitter for the next two to three years? Would it even turn him into a +15-run hitter? It would be great if it did, but again, those runs are less valuable coming from a DH. He’d be lucky to produce 3 WAR per year as a DH through the life of his contract, even with significant improvements at the plate.

Still, with the Cubs eating a big chunk of the contract, perhaps he’d be a worthy risk. All we have is an anonymous source, who might not even be within the Cubs organization, using the term “high percentage,” so it’s unclear what the Cubs are really thinking here. I doubt a team would want to pay Soriano more than $5 million per year, which would leave the Cubs eating $39 million of the $54 million he’s due from 2012-2014, with the question of his remaining $6 million from 2011 still on the table. I’m guessing the Cubs would eat at least $5 mil of that, meaning they’d be eating $45 million total, or 75 percent of the total contract. That’s a high percentage for sure, and it’s probably the minimum they could get away with.

Even if we arrive at a logical sum for the Cubs to absorb, we still have the matter of a team trading for Soriano. How badly do the Cubs wan to give him away? In other words, what kind of prospect would they require in exchange for eating 75% of Soriano’s salary? This is where things get really tricky. Soriano is a risk any way you slice it. He’d also come with a decent price tag. Why would a team give up a decent prospect for that? Why wouldn’t they save their decent prospects for, say, the aforementioned Cabrera? He’s not under team control for as long, but he’ll make far less than Soriano next year. Even if you trade him and sign him for an extension through 2014, I doubt he’d cost as much as the remainder of Soriano’s contract. There are other options out there, ones who can play defense, even, who would help more than Soriano.

Given the above breakdown, it’s pretty clear why the Cubs want to rid themselves of Soriano’s contract. It’s historically bad, and they’d do well to move on. But there are plenty of concerns, even if an acquiring teams removes injury risk by moving him to DH. He loses plenty of value in that case, so a team has to truly believe that he can recover some offensive value when completely healthy. That’s a big risk, even at $5 million per season. There might not be great options on the market, but there certainly are better alternatives. Try as the Cubs might, they might have to eat 100% of Soriano’s contract to get him out of town.

Agreed… these comment feeds are turning into sarcastic ridiculousness. Some of the informed commenters around here are getting just as annoying as the uninformed, sorry. The selfish humor induced banter is going to turn this place into youtube hell.

-22

A 3/54 for Soriano (not counting this year) is not a top 10 bad contract. Zito, Wells, ARod, Howard, Werth, Crawford, Lackey, Dunn, Jeter, and Braun are all worse (Okay maybe it’s 10th or so). Plus, Soriano provided 11 war for two division title winners at the beginning of his contract. While that alone doesn’t justify $136 million, for a team like the Cubs, it makes the contract more or less “worth it.”

I’m not saying this contract isn’t “bad”. I’m just saying it is not one of the top 5 worst contracts (there are like 26 100m+ contracts?) at either the time of signing or with the best information we have now. I’m not really interested in snipping off portions of a contract and evaluating them as independent decisions since its dishonest in evaluating the contract. If Soriano has put up 3 10+ WAR seasons and then lost a leg to a knee surgery gone bad, do we rank this as “WORST CONTRACT EVER” since clearly he’s a 0 WAR player with no possibility of return yet owed a vast sum of money?!?

UZR/150 at the Trop: 22.5
UZR/150 away from the Trop 7.5
(8 year sample size)

Knock Crawford down to a 7.5 defender as opposed to the 15 people think he is and his value changes significantly.

He’s still a great defender, but that value was overstated by the Trop… not only range but he actually had a significant plus arm when at the Trop (and obviously anyone who’s seen him throw would not be surprised that it’s negative on the road)

Unless he gets a bug offensive bump from Fenway… I think the contract will not look pretty in a couple of years (not that it looks all that great now)

Ok, who is the moron trying to put Braun in here? The guy does nothing but hit (serious statement/defensive joke). His isn’t bad until he starts to play like Wells, Soriano, Lackey, Dunn, or Zito, or he gets hurt and gets caught cheating like Rodriguez.

And you CAN’T stick Werth or Crawford in these groups. Both are in year one in new situations. Werth had to (try to) carry Washington with Zimmerman out, and he doesn’t get the comfort of being surrounded by a winning offense. Crawford has to get used to a high-pressure environment, and he got hurt, which kind of killed the slight bit of momentum he might have had going.

Let’s actually give them more than 3 months before we start calling those 2 historically bad contracts.

Ryan Howard will make a whopping $25 mil/year from 2013 through 2017, $125 mil total. His production this season is comparable to Carlos Pena’s. My vote for worst contract in baseball is Howard’s. There was and is simply no excuse for handing out that kind of money to Howard, especially since he was under contract already through 2012.

I keep forgetting when Howard’s deal goes into effect. Last year I thought it went into effect this year and then I was thinking it goes into effect next year, and now I see it starts in 2013 and I laugh and I laugh and I laugh.

Why are you talking about the present value of a contract? I guess if you wanna view contracts at arbitrary endpoints to determine the “goodness” of something in totality that is weird. (I guess the first A-rod contract sucked then.)

I view contracts in totality. I think his contract was the best of the three that was signed that winter. Useless metrics like “WAR” seem to agree with me. Whatever makes you happy though.

-13

What are you even talking about? It’s insane to say that the Soriano contract is/was worse than Carlos Lee’s? We’ll just have to agree to disagree about that then.

Soriano’s been worth about 15 “useless” wins since he signed w/ the Cubs. He had 1 great year and has been either terrible or slightly above average the rest. He’s set to make $54 million over the next 3 years and probably projects as a 2-2.5 win player at best each season. Needless to say, 2 win left fielders are fairly easy to find on the free agent market. You don’t need to pay them $18 M in order to secure their services. Those guys are eminently fungible. He’s Chris Heisey at about 36 times the price.

Now, all of this was foreseeable because he was 31 when he was signed by the Cubs. LOL!

1. The Cubs signed Soriano when they had a team that was a legitimate contender. They won the division twice and shit the bed in the playoffs both times.

2. Everyone knew at the time of the signing (at least I did) that it was for that brief period when their core was going to be together and still effective (Lee, Ramirez, Soriano, Z, etc) and that the back end would be pretty ugly. It was the price to pay to try to shoot for that window. They went for it.

As a Cubs fan I did not (and still don’t) really have a problem with the signing. You have to view it for what it was. They signed one of the best FAs that year to a princely sum in order to have a few really good shots at a WS. Didn’t happen, which sucks, but you can’t ignore that part of it because they’re paying the price now.

-9

You know, I’m not a parent or even a christian, not hardcore moral nor a right wing nut, however can we keep the language to a level of a professional? Damn, ass are fine. I just don’t see it necessary to drop the f-bomb here.

Alfonso Soriano is one of the premier players in the league. Any team lucky enough to receive his services will immediately be put into playoff contention. The guy is a proven winner and an asset to any ballclub savvy enough to pick him up. Why the Cubs want to get rid of this talent is beyond me.

I would really like to see Soriano land with the Rays…they could use a bona fide DH and Soriano fits the bill perfectly. The man is still an offensive force and will make a great addition to any team serious about competing.

I can’t see the Cubs getting anything resembling a good prospect, no matter how much of his salary they end up eating. For them, the sole incentive has to be saving money, because if there just isn’t a taker for him–and there very well may not be– they’ll be forced to eat all of the ~$60MM he’s still owed. Wiping their hands of any of that remaining salary would have to be seen as a small victory.

I’m not sure why the White Sox would make that deal, even if the Cubs picked up the difference, since they could probably (still) get a much more valuable player than Soriano if they’re willing to eat Dunn’s contract.

Yeah, I was thinking about this too. It’s absurd in reality, but it seems kind of sensible too. I can imagine that the change in personality matches would benefit both guys. But I somehow think that the chance of one team looking substantially worse than the other in a shared market would be too much for most administrations.
Dunn’s defense is just the worst tho. Does Fonzi + 15mil for Dunn seem do-able? I just don’t know where the Cubs would put Dunn. I doubt they’ll give Pena away because he’s going to be a type B, plus they owe him a 5mil cash payment in December that they would surely have to eat.

I don’t see any good reason why the Cubs shouldn’t cover at least 75% of Soriano’s contract if someone else (Sabean? Cashman?) wants to pay the other 25%. Take a PTBNL, save ~$15 million, open a roster spot for a player with some long-term value. Win-win-win.

No question Soriano is a huge overpriced contract, but he is not worthless. He is probably worth 2-3 WAR a season. Teams do a fair amount of work finding 2-3 WAR reliable outfielders. I doubt the Cubs can eat enough salary to get a prospect that will generate them 2-3 WAR a year in return, so I would not trade him if I was the CUBS unless they had a sure thing top tier prospect he was preventing from playing everyday. (I do not know if they do)

Plus, hasn’t their been some articles lately about how the NL is being pushed by realignment into adopting the DH? If that happens a year or so from now the CUBS will be happy to have Soriano around to plug into that hole.

lastly, I think Soriano’s ptofile better fits in a hitters park like Wrigley. he need to be in a homerun hitters park to have value. Most AL teams looking for more offense are in pitchers parks (Oak, Seattle, etc.). I am fairly sure a guy who rarely walks and gets all his value from hitting home runs is a worse fit in those parks.

That’s just it…the cubs do have a top 20 prospect who could be playing at the major league level tomorrow in Brett Jackson…Soriano has been batting 6 or 7th for the cubs most of the season with some success…but fact remains he is being paid 18 mil per season to be a 6 or 7th hitter on a bad offensive team. Cut the rope and be done with it

[1] I love how folks seem to think that league average to slightly above average players are all over the place, ready to be had for market value. That’s laughable. (I agree with the point you’re making).

[2] The problem with Soriano is the same old thing, he’s hacktastic as evident by his .298 OBP. He hits homers, which is good … but that’s pretty much it.

The problem with the Soriano performance is that about 60% of that WAR came in 2006-07.

At the time they signed him he was one of the best LF in the game. He was signed, along with Pinella, to increase the excitement and financial worth of the organization to raise the asking price for the sell of the team.

AS was worth 4 WAR in 2008 and 3 WAR in 2010. He’s probably not going to earn the full value of the contract, but he’s not going to be grossly overpayed if we use the standard 4-5M per WAR figure. He’s earned 14 fWAR as a Cub, so that’s anywhere between 48-70M, meaning he’s probably going to earn about 100M of the 136M paid to him.

I’ve been promoting this idea for weeks. Zito is a durable, capable #4 or #5 starter, which the Cubs desperately need. Soriano is a capable LF (and occasional 2B?) power hitter that the Giants desperately need. Their contracts are nearly identical, and both need a change of scenery where they’re no longer blamed for their ridiculous contracts.

As a Giants fan, I would add Rowand and a high level pitching prospect (Surkamp?) for Aramis Ramirez, this helps even out the contract differentials. Rowand might thrive in Wrigley, and the Cubs might acquire a future ace, which the Giants don’t need. Ramirez is with SF for the rest of 2011 at $14 Million/yr, with Sandoval moving to Catcher for most games. Posey (C) and Sanchez (2B) are back for 2012; Ramiriez won’t be with the Cubs in 2012 anyway.

Zito and Soriano are only untradeable if you lack creativity. This trade would give both teams things they need, while also giving players despised for their contracts a fresh start with new teams.

Soriano has said he’s willing to allow a trade, but Aramis has zero interest in waiving his no trade clause. The other issue with a trade for Aramis Ramirez is that, with a trade, his $16 million option for 2012 vests. So San Francisco would have to assume that Posey, Belt and Sandoval would all be good between 1B and C, less any IF playing time for Aubrey Huff.

Really, Ramirez probably would be worth 3-4 WAR in 2012 if he plays at his current level for another year. There really aren’t that many top-flight offensively-oriented 3B in the game (ARod, Zimmerman, Longoria, and a few more), so Ramirez retains value so long as he is more mobile than a statue.. But I’d think an AL team would find him more valuable as a future DH/3B than would an NL team.

ManRam also threw up 34 WAR for 160M. But WAR/$ is a pretty terrible metric for top top end contracts (it ignores that teams with significantly above average resources will be above the “average”, the limitations on roster spots/playing time, and the cost of marginal wins at fringes). I’d consider this one a solid value as well.

Interestingly, from a quick peek at Cot’s it appears that almost all the 90m contracts were great.

With all this talk about “worst contract,” I feel like there is something that people are ignoring (maybe because it is a little bit harder to quantify or compare), but that is the market size and such. Even if A-Rod does nothing for the remainder of his contract, I don’t think that is one of the “worst” contract. Maybe a player getting paid more than he deserves, but his contract does not cripple the team.

Well’s contract crippled the jays and it can only be black magic that they got rid of it.

I agree with this aspect as well. Viewing contracts in context of not just team talent (expected wins) but also with the contract as a portion of their payroll and how it may impact future rebuilding efforts.

Coming from a Cubs fan here, I really don’t it’s the worst contract in history…but it was terrible. People forget Hendry put all his chips in the middle in order to bring home a championship, gambling with an 8 year contract – the gamble simply did not pay off. Everyone, including Hendry and Soriano, knew his value going to plummet after 2-3 years.

IMO, the Milton Bradley contract was worse..considering Adam Dunn & Raul Ibanez were out there and cheaper.

Soriano has been a bit unlucky with a LD% over 18% and a BABIP of only .288

Aaron stole my thunder on Vernon Wells. I can’t believe nobody thought of him until then tho. At least no one has mentioned the real albatross around Kenny’s neck, Alexis Rios’ contract has been and always will be a worse contract than Dunn or Soriano.

The guy is a bum, mike quade is an idiot two peas in a pod. The good one is you have all the speed in the world sitting on the bench a kid that can run from home too first in 3 seconds but what the hell the cubs are so bad they really don’t need any base runners.